Winner

#1 was a prostitute. Cliché, I know. I botched it. The blows to the head didn’t kill her. I don’t know how I managed to get her heart out while throwing up.

#6 shoplifted. Pens, cigarettes… inconsequential junk. She died fast, but the heart… going through skin, fat, muscles, ribs, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. Still vomiting.

#14 was a surgeon. Operated drunk, they said. I pretended to be a nurse and strangled her in the OR. The scalpel made the chest… stuff… easier.

I tried to pick ones who had it coming, but who was I kidding? None of these women deserved a death like this. Still, there was no going back now. A deal was a deal.

He’d come to me a week after the accident. The tears had dried up by then. Who knew emptiness could hurt so much?

He offered me Leela back. In return for one hundred hearts. He even gave me an hour with her, a taste of what could be. It was her - my Leela. And so, when that hour was spent, I signed my oath in blood on a page in His ledger. How could I not?

#21 abused her kids. She deserved it. 

#45 shouldn’t have been so rude.

#66. Drugged her, kept her alive while I got the heart out. She was a whore anyway.

#100. Oh, she was a work of art by the time I was done.

And so I got Leela back. No Machiavellian doublecross, no Stephen King twist to the story. Leela was with me again as though she’d never gone.

They say you shouldn’t deal with the Devil. Why the hell not? I did and I won.

So I should stop now, I guess.

I could.

If I wanted to.

(NYCMidnight 2021 Microfiction 250 Round 1 Winner)